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BENEFITS
The company established a
standardized set of policies for
different user roles and is now able
to provision these accounts
through a central directory service
that manages all user identities.
The information contained in this document represents the current view of Likewise
Software on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Likewise
Software must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a
commitment on the part of Likewise, and Likewise Software cannot guarantee the
accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.
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Likewise Software
15395 SE 30th Place, Suite #140
Bellevue, WA 98007
USA
Table of Contents
Situation.................................................................................................. 4
Solution................................................................................................... 5
Benefits ................................................................................................... 6
For More Information ............................................................................. 6
Situation
Call center operations pose a greater security concern in financial
services than in some other industries, because the subject matter of the
calls is typically sensitive information. That’s why this company was
frustrated by the obstacles it faced in implementing standard security
policies across the thousands of Linux machines used by its call center
personnel.
Solution
The call center was already using Active Directory for limited purposes,
but had no way to use it for the larger task of managing users on its
thousands of workstations, because Active Directory does not support
Linux machines. But what if Active Directory could be made to support
those Linux machines?
“This was the ‘aha!’ moment for us, when we realized there might be a
way to use Active Directory to solve our problem,” the security officer
“Likewise not only solved our said. “We knew what Active Directory could do, and we thought we knew
Linux desktop security issues, what it could not do. Then we talked to Likewise and realized we could
have the best of both worlds — lean Linux machines and users managed
but also reduced our costs of
by Active Directory.”
managing our 5,000-plus
Linux desktops. We After conducting trials on a limited number of machines and evaluating
the results, the company decided to implement Likewise Enterprise
consolidated multiple NIS
across its whole call center.
domains and scattered
/etc/passwd and group files “Some of us worried about the level of effort that would be involved in
making the transition,” the security officer said. “We had so many local
into a single system that’s a
/etc/passwd and /etc/group files scattered across thousands of
lot easier to manage and machines, and how would we get the info from all our different NIS
secure.” domains consolidated? But it turned out the migration tools and scripting
capabilities of Likewise Enterprise made the transition much easier than
we expected.”
The company now uses Likewise Enterprise to manage all 5,000 of its
call center Linux machines. Each machine has the Likewise Enterprise
Agent installed, which allows it to be joined to Active Directory and
managed from there. Now the call center IT group uses Active Directory
tools, augmented by Likewise extensions, to manage user identities and
establish group policies much as if they were managing Windows
machines.
Benefits
The company not only established and enforced single usernames,
strong passwords, locking screensavers and other security policies for its
call center, but it also significantly streamlined administrative processes.
User roles and group access rights are now centrally created and
controlled. New users with specific sets of access rights are created
quickly and easily within Active Directory and the Likewise Enterprise
Management Console. Users can be quickly added, immediately
removed, or their access rights easily modified, all from one central
location.
For technical questions or support for the 30-day free trial, email
support@likewisesoftware.com.
ABOUT LIKEWISE
Likewise® Software solutions improve management and interoperability of Windows,
Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix systems with easy-to-use software for cross-platform
identity management.
Likewise provides familiar Windows-based tools for system administrators
to seamlessly integrate Linux and Unix systems into Microsoft Active Directory. This
enables companies with mixed networks to use existing Windows skills and
resources, maximize the value of their Active Directory investment, strengthen the
network security, and lower the total cost of ownership of Linux and Unix servers.
Likewise Software is a Bellevue, WA-based software company funded by leading
venture capital firms Ignition Partners, Intel Capital, and Trinity Ventures. Likewise
has experienced management and engineering teams in place and is led by senior
executives from leading technology companies such as Microsoft, F5 Networks,
EMC and Mercury.